Advertising + Partners

Our Audience

PC Pitstop opened its doors in March 2000. Since then, PC Pitstop has become the largest PC help and diagnostic site on the web with steadily increasing year-on-year traffic.

There is no single marketing demographic that describes well the users on our site. Our research statistics give some indication that our users are slightly more sophisticated than the average PC population. One thing we have learned is that our users are motivated to solve their PC problems and get their PC running in tip top shape, and they are looking for tools and services to help them achieve that goal.

Our Advertising Philosophy

Most web sites base their pricing on the numbers of impressions delivered to their audience. That “CPM Pricing” is then determined by the size and the location of the advertisements. Over time, this has often led to an escalating “war” as advertisers try to grab the user’s attention with ever-larger ad graphics and pop-up advertising; at the same time, users are turned off by most of this advertising and use measures to block it.

We prefer to be compensated on a commission based on the actual sales generated by our web site. This lets us understand what products our users are interested in purchasing and in what volumes. Our advertisers prefer this approach as well because their advertising costs are tied directly to their sales levels. If sales go down, then their costs go down accordingly, and of course vice versa. This in turn allows us to build a better web site, matching our visitor’s needs with the products that can answer those needs.

PC Pitstop has been sold out on advertising inventory for quite some time, yet we are continually looking for new advertisers. In this way, we constantly optimize the revenue from advertising throughout the site. We use a wide variety of methods to drive sales of our partners’ products:

Traditional banner, medallion, and tower advertising

Targeted text links

Product endorsements

By offering products that our visitors genuinely need and that solve problems we can clearly demonstrate they are having, PC Pitstop advertising becomes a help, not a hindrance, to our visitors.

Who Are Our Partners?

The majority of our advertisers are PC software makers and service providers. Our must successful partners are software makers of PC utility products such as antivirus, anti-spyware, PC optimization, etc. They have quality products, treat their customers well, and do business ethically.

Our partners pay their bills on time and are able to give us regular sales reports. This is key because we are regularly tweaking our site to make the best use of our advertising space. This benefits both us and our partners.